Has anybody seen a Jaguar in AZ?

[winterhk]

Hi Everybody,

I'm new to the site. I've been searching about Jaguars in Arizona, but haven't found much. I live in Prescott and have hiked extensively since moving here and have seen some wonderful wildlife.

Last March, I saw a large cat run across the road along Oak Creek, North of Uptowne Sedona. I assumed it was a black mountain lion. Recently at the Heritage Park Zoo, the cat caretaker told me it was, without a doubt, a Jaguar and that they are much more populous than is estimated. He said there are two or three known in the Sups and have photographed numerous times close to the border.

Interestingly, I backpacked for two weeks tin the Sups in January and felt like I was being tracked the whole time. He had little doubt I was being followed by a mountain lion or Jaguar, as he has tracked them there. He reckoned it was a Jag because they will usually follow humans, however rarely are seen or come too close.

He also told me that in the thirties, the last Jaguar in Prescott was shot right in town and there is supposedly 40,000 acres currently closed for Jag breeding on Southern AZ. Does anyone else have any experience with these majestic big cats?

I'd really love to hear more stories or info from anyone who knows about any of this.

Thanks,
Brian Jackson

[JimmyLyding]

It's a well-known phenomenon for people to report seeing a big "black cat." Not just in Arizona, but all over all over the country. Did these people actually see a big black cat? Did they misidentify something else? Was the cat not actually black, but the lighting conditions made it seem so?

Mountain lions are being seen in many areas where they are supposedly extirpated, and the local game and fish folks typically classify the sighting as being of an escaped pet, a large labrador retriever, or someone misidentifying a large tomcat. I don't buy that at all. A mountain lion was tagged in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and then run over by a train in Oklahoma. Another mountain lion from the Black Hills of SD was found near Saskatoon! Is it that surprising that a cougar was killed in suburban Chicago last year? Anyone who's been back east to a locale other than the big city might know how the population of white tailed deer has exploded, so would it be that surprising that cougars are repopulating their former range east of the Mississippi?

As for jaguars, the only reason we know of them is because some lion hunters have managed to collect evidence of them in the form of pictures, and then our beloved Game & Fish Dept. moved in. I would suspect that we would know if there are any jaguars in any area of our state that experiences lion hunting. I don't know if there's an lion hunting in the Superstitions. It also wouldn't surprise me if any jaguar sighted in an area now "traditionally" known for being jaguar habitat would suffer the "shoot, shovel, and shut up" treatment.

[azbackpackr]

Yeah, but you could have laughed at my joke...

If you read these old pioneer stories, particularly from the Southeastern US, there are always stories about black "panthers" and such. I have always heard that if you see them up close, they are not actually all black, but have a patterned coat.

[BobP]

I saw a black jaguar on the 101

I used to see a black jag at North Mountain. The plate said Cotton... Cotton Fitzsimmons used to hike it and would always clap and give me a high five. I was usually the only one running up with a weighted vest. Oh to be younger .

Repy to Jim
Whitetail deer are so ovepopulated now in CT and cause major accidents.

Topic.. Never seen one...It would be cool though... at a real safe distance.

[hulagu79]

If you search for( macho b ) you will be able to see the photos of the jaguar who lived in south of Tucson area until few months ago.He was caught by fish and game to be tagged but died a week after the incident.There is a federal investigation going on about this because some people think game and fish hurt the animal during tagging.
There is also another jaguar at the same area called MACHOa. The problem is this jaguars were both males and they are not sure if there is any females living around here.
I would like to see a mountain lion,bear or a jaguar in their natural habitat but not lucky enough so far....

[azbackpackr]

I've seen plenty of bears, a few lions, but the only jaguar I ever saw was that poor old fellow they used to keep caged up at what my daughter used to call the "Deseum" (Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson.) He finally died of old age.

[JimmyLyding]

<<Looks like this is going to get ugly
-Jim>>

Arizona Daily Star

Snaring deliberate, and state lacked permits, US reports
Jaguar's capture broke law, feds say

Tony Davis and Tim Steller Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Friday, January 22, 2010 12:00 am

Last year's capture of the last known wild jaguar in the United States by state workers was intentional - and the evidence points to criminal wrongdoing, a new federal report says.

The evidence against an Arizona Game and Fish Department subcontractor - and possibly a Game and Fish employee - is in the hands of federal prosecutors in Tucson, says the report from the U.S. Interior Department's Office of Inspector General.

Also, Game and Fish lacked permits needed to trap the jaguar, whether the capture was intentional or not, which violates the Endangered Species Act, the report says. The state agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had argued since the Feb. 18 capture southwest of Tucson that Game and Fish had appropriate permits.

Ten days after the jaguar's initial capture, officials recaptured the jaguar, Macho B, on March 2 because he was showing signs of decline. Government officials and veterinarians at the Phoenix Zoo concluded the jaguar should be euthanized.

State and federal officials initially said Macho B walked into a snare intended for mountain lions or bears. They launched investigations after a wildlife technician told the Arizona Daily Star she had been directed to put female jaguar scat at the site of the trap two weeks before the capture.

The product of a nine-month investigation, the inspector general's report does not name individuals who could be liable. However, the description of the Arizona Game and Fish subcontractor matches in several respects wildlife biologist Emil McCain.

McCain, who was employed by the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project, was working as a subcontractor for a Game and Fish contractor, Clark's Guide Service, on a mountain-lion and black-bear study when the jaguar was captured.

McCain was simultaneously working on jaguar research using motion-sensing cameras, as the subcontractor describe in the report was.

And e-mails between McCain and Game and Fish employees show that in the weeks before Macho B's capture, they were making preparations in case Macho B was caught, a detail also repeated in the report.

McCain did not respond to a phone call or an e-mail seeking comment on the report.

It is unclear which of the Arizona Game and Fish employees involved in Macho B's capture was the one cited in the report as possibly involved in criminal wrongdoing.

In a statement issued late Thursday, Game and Fish officials said they stand by their previous position that the department did not direct anyone to capture Macho B initially. Game and Fish "disagrees with any assertion in the report that the department did not have a valid permit," the statement adds.

A U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman didn't return a phone call or an e-mail about the criminal investigation's status.

A supervising biologist working for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Phoenix also incorrectly approved a form of necropsy for the jaguar that left doubts about the cause of the animal's death last March, the report says.

Steve Spangle, a supervisor for all endangered-species activities for the service in Arizona, approved what's called a cosmetic necropsy rather than a full necropsy because he didn't know the difference between the two procedures and, in fact, had never heard the term "necropsy," the report says.

Otherwise, the report exonerates the wildlife service, saying there is no evidence suggesting criminal involvement by any service or Interior Department employee. Service employees were not involved in the mountain-lion/black-bear study that resulted in the jaguar's capture, nor in the capture and recapture of Macho B, the report says.

The report also doesn't criticize the service's decision to euthanize Macho B after authorities determined he had irreversible kidney failure. It says that after a University of Arizona Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory issued a report last March finding no kidney failure in the jaguar's tissues, two other outside reviewers concluded that the animal did have kidney failure. They were the U.S. Geological Survey's wildlife lab in Madison, Wis., and Linda Munson, a specialist on large cats and a professor at the University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

The inspector general's probe was launched shortly after the wildlife service's law enforcement officials began a criminal investigation April 1. The request for both investigations came from U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a Tucson Democrat.

In a statement, Grijalva said Thursday that the wildlife service should work with the Justice Department to take immediate action against Game and Fish. The service also should suspend the state agency's authority to manage any jaguars that may appear in the United States until the problems unearthed by the report are fixed, he said.

Arizona Game and Fish said in its statement Thursday that it is disappointed it was never contacted during the inspector general's investigation.

"The report contains allegations and opinions apparently untested by the IG," Game and Fish said. "Many of those assertions have been previously addressed by the department and present little or no new information."

Game and Fish also said that because the new report is a public version that excludes some information, "it still represents a redacted and therefore incomplete version." The state agency is conducting an internal investigation of the Macho B capture and death but has refused to discuss or release details because of the criminal investigation.

The wildlife service's Spangle said he can't comment on the report, on orders from his superiors. Tom Buckley, a service spokesman, said the service cannot comment on the continuing criminal investigation, and can't answer any questions right now about whether the state's authority over jaguars should be suspended.

"This is a decision for senior managers to make. Nobody at that level has yet seen this (report)," said Buckley.

The report's conclusion exculpating the service cuts two ways, said Michael Robinson of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, which has long been involved in litigation over jaguar management. The report shows that Fish and Wildlife deferred completely to Arizona Game and Fish in managing jaguars and other endangered species, Robinson said.

"From the very outset, the treatment of the jaguar has badly needed adult supervision," he said.

Macho B was captured last Feb. 18 when he walked into a trap set as part of a Game and Fish study to capture, radio-collar and study black bears and mountain lions along the Mexican border. Looking "healthy and hearty" at the time of his release six hours later, the jaguar slowed dramatically a week later while roaming in the woods and was recaptured March 2. He was flown to Phoenix, where veterinarians with the Phoenix Zoo gave him blood tests, diagnosed him with kidney failure and euthanized him.

The criminal investigation was sparked by allegations made last March by Janay Brun, a former jaguar detection-project technician, that McCain had told her to put female jaguar scat at the same trap site two weeks before the capture. McCain denied the allegation.

However, the inspector general's investigators concluded the capture was deliberate after reviewing more than 90 documents and notes from 38 interviews conducted by wildlife service agents, its report says.

On Thursday, Brun said she feels vindicated by the inspector general report.

The Inspector General's Office was briefed last May by the criminal investigators and given access to all their documents and interviews, the report says.

Evidence suggests that the unnamed subcontractor and Game and Fish employees knew that Macho B was roaming in that area, the report says.

These conclusions confirm conservationists' long-held suspicions that the capture was intentional, said Craig Miller, of Defenders of Wildlife. It was obvious to environmentalists that the jaguar had been in that area for a long time because it had been photographed there at least a decade before, Miller said.

For years, the issue of risks to Macho B had been hotly debated within a two-state Jaguar Conservation Team, "but our concerns were flat-out ignored," Miller said Thursday.

The report also pointed to three key items leading to conclusions that the state didn't have a valid permit to capture the jaguar and that federal officials weren't involved in decision-making in the capture:

• Investigators interviewed a wildlife service coordinator, Marty Tuegel, who works in the Albuquerque office, who told them that the department lacked a proper permit to capture a jaguar under the Endangered Species Act. Tuegel said the state's broader permit for intentional endangered-species captures didn't list jaguars by name and the department hadn't obtained a federal biological opinion needed to carry out an accidental capture of an endangered species.

• The investigators interviewed a second service biologist in Tucson - whom the report doesn't name - who said he knew the subcontractor had placed "camera traps" in the area to photograph Macho B. But that biologist also said neither he nor anyone else in the service's Tucson office was involved in making decisions for these projects.

• The same official had warned state officials in advance of the possibility that a jaguar could be captured during the study. He sent an e-mail Feb. 26, 2008, to Arizona Game and Fish employees Todd Atwood and Terry Johnson, the report says. But his request for a meeting on the subject was rebuffed.

"The biologist said that he was intimidated by Johnson and his attitude that the AZGFD could do whatever it wanted in Arizona," the report says.

Game and Fish did not reply to that account in its Thursday statement.

Game and Fish said the inspector general misunderstood the state's authority under its general Endangered Species Act permit.

[big_load]

The criminal investigation was sparked by allegations made last March by Janay Brun, a former jaguar detection-project technician, that McCain had told her to put female jaguar scat at the same trap site two weeks before the capture. McCain denied the allegation.

That's got to be a fatal blow. Her story would be easily verifiable. You don't buy female jaguar scat at Circle K. She had to get it from somebody, and investigators would surely follow up on it.

[azdesertfather]

A rancher in the Chiricahuas photographed a Mexican jaguar and wrote a little book about it called Eyes of Fire. You can check it out at http://www.jaguarbook.com. Pretty interesting

[kevinweitzel75]

I have seen cat tracks as big as my hand at the top of four peaks, probably just a lion. But I remember seeing something about jaguars coming into AZ from southern Mexico jungle areas. Might be a little harder for them to cross the boarder with tighter boarder inforcement. Ok, so it wasn't that funny.

[azbackpackr]

They actually don't come from the jungle areas, but from the Sierra Madre, which is very similar in habitat to the Chiricahuas and other Southern Arizona sky island ranges. Basically, the habitat doesn't stop just because there is a border.

[big_load]

Photos and Transcripts, AZ Game and Fish Department Internal Investigation

http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/jaguar/JaguarI ... tion.shtml

Photos (304): http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/es/JaguarPhotos100.shtml
So far only the Thorry Smith transcripts are up: http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/jaguar/documen ... wswMOR.pdf

I read the whole thing. It makes my blood boil.

[te_wa]

nope, but i've seen plenty of cougars and snow leopards* in north scottsdale.

* she's like a cougar, but older - hence, the white hair

[hiker2010]

I debated not answering this one because every time I mention this anywhere, I get shot down, flamed, and generally told I'm lying, but what the hey ...

I saw one in the spring of 2002 -- after that winter with NO rain -- crossing a dirt road in Hidden Valley, south of Phoenix about 30-35 miles, and maybe four miles from the boundary with the South Maricopas.... Leva

I can't believe I found this post. Hey Leva, I feel your pain. In the Spring 2002 I was asleep on the roof of my Kombi when the roar of a Lion woke me up. I layed there and listened to it roar a couple more times and then total silence. I didn't have a flashlight on the roof with me so there was no chance of seeing anything.

I thought it was pretty cool so I told anyone who would listen that I had heard a Mountain Lion roar while camped out in the Desert just North of Mobile.

A couple weeks later I was at the Sportsmans Expo and stopped at the AZ Game and Fish booth. I repeated the story to the game ranger manning the booth and well; he looks at me funny like I am pulling his leg or something and asks if I was sure it was a lion I heard. I assured him that I had heard African Lions roar at night and that what I heard was defininitely a Mountain Lion roaring.

He then tells me that Mountain Lions don't roar. He says the only big cat on this continent that makes a roaring sound is a Jaguar and there are none of those in Arizona so I must be mistaken. I am like whattheF...dude I know what I heard. He wasn't buying any of it and kinda shoo'd me on down the isle like I was crazy or drunk.

I realise that Game cams have since photographed them South of Tucson but Leva's post is the first time in eight years that I have heard about anyone other than myself saying they came into contact with a Jaguar just South of Phoenix.

[JimmyLyding]

Mountain lions scream and jaguars roar

[satillayakker]

With the recent post about ocelots in AZ, I thought I would be safe reviving this thread. Mainly because I see alot of people write about seeing what could be jaguars. I was called crazy when talking about what I saw in 1999 I was just east of Yuma on the east side of the Gilas. I saw a very large dark (not black!) cat very briefly. I was driving and he was running. I had seen lions before, and I just didn't think this was a lion. Had a larger profile and although he was dark and moving, I did see what I perceived as some sort of patterned coat. I knew of the past home range of jaguars, and I was convinced it was one. Everyone told me there was no way, it had to be a lion, or maybe an escaped jag.

For some reason, there is a big dismissal of people seeing big cats in the US in alot of places. I was told by Ga DNR there were no wild lions, aka. panthers in GA, well I beg to differ. I grew up in the swamps, and KNOW they are there. I was actually told by a ranger that is was a big dog that I saw camping one night. A big dog that looked like a cat, walked like a cat, and had a tail that went forever!! Even after trail cams capturing lions in north GA and panthers in the swamp of south GA, they are still discounted as escaped pets! People hae even been known to see black ones with a slightly noticeable pattern in the coat. (Interesting)

Also, there is a booming population of jaguarundi in Florida moving into GA. Although not native, they seem to be doing well.

I am just wondering, why has no one told these cats they aren't suppose to be in those areas!?

[Tortoise_Hiker]

@Jim Lyding
I've been known to scream every now and then.Usually snakes are involved.

[big_load]

Jaguars have been detected in AZ. Most famously, one known as "Macho B" died at the hands of people researching their presence in AZ (a collection of state officials and a contractor who also worked for outside organizations). The transcripts from the Arizona Game and Fish Department's internal inquiry may be found here: http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/jaguar/JaguarI ... tion.shtml

I've read all but the last one, which was about 1,000 pages to that point. The last one will probably be even more depressing, which is why I haven't read that one yet.

There have also been camera trap photos of AZ jaguars published in National Geographic.

[azdesertfather]

Another jaguar sighting in AZ:

http://t.co/3ln3w0Zr

A hunter saw and photographed a jaguar in Cochise County over the weekend, the Arizona Game and Fish Department confirmed today.

Extremely rare jaguar seen southeast of Tucson
Based on images from photographs and video shot by the hunter, the jaguar is an adult male that appeared in good, healthy condition and weighed about 200 pounds, Game and Fish said. The hunter treed the jaguar Saturday while hunting mountain lions, Game and Fish said in a news release.

It was the first confirmed sighting of a jaguar in the United States since... http://t.co/3ln3w0Zr

[chumley]

Cool! Now if only AZGFD leaves this one alone, maybe it will survive!

[azdesertfather]

Update:

Jaguar seen in area of Cochise
A hunter photographed an adult male jaguar in Southeast Arizona after his dogs treed it, Arizona Game and Fish Department officials said Monday.
The sighting Saturday in Cochise County was the first confirmed report of a wild jaguar in the United States since the death of Macho B in Arizona in March 2009. It may have been the fifth wild jaguar - all males - seen in Arizona since 1996. The jaguar is listed as an endangered species in the United States and Mexico.
An experienced mountain lion hunter spotted the jaguar Saturday morning about 15 feet up...
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/jaguar- ... 503bb.html